


the one with the flu

by floweryfran



Series: a motley crew [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Bucky Barnes Feels, Domestic Avengers, Everyone Loves Bucky, Everyone loves Peter, Fluff, Happy Family, Harley Keener & Peter Parker Friendship, Harley Keener & Peter Parker are Siblings, Iron Family, Iron-Dad, Iron-Dad and Spider-Son, IronDad and SpiderSon, Irondad, Irondad fluff, Marvel - Freeform, Peter Parker Feels, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker fluff, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Mess, Post-Iron Man 3, Sick Peter Parker, Sickfic, Soft Bucky Barnes, Soft Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, harley is a bisexual disaster, irondad and spiderson fluff, mcu - Freeform, soft may parker, soft tony stark, spiderson fluff, the boys get two great parents in this one, tony stark fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 13:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: Peter and Harley shared everything.It worked, the sharing thing, better than either of them could have anticipated. It was one of the more sensical aspects of their lives, really: brothers were apt to share, and, considering they had been found on more than one occasion gleefully shouting about their mutual adoption of the other from all of the rooftops of the greater Queens area, sharing came with the turf. It was easy. It was something that bonded them ever closer as each day passed.But. Well.Just because it worked better than they anticipated didn’t mean it was always… good.Worst of all? Undoubtedly, horrifically, revoltingly worst of all?They even got sick together.





	the one with the flu

**Author's Note:**

> puke and dick jokes tw. this is just a really self-indulgent, fluffy sick!fic for our baby boys. literally no plot, just 9k words of SOFTNESS. i really tried to be funny but i am so bad at writing humor that it might be awful i’m so sorry
> 
> a request and a piece of advice: please read the other parts of this series first because, while this can be read as a standalone, it makes so much more sense in context and also defines harley and pete’s relationship better (and this one references some past events from those chapters as well). also… they’re like not bad it won’t be torture for you to read them so if you like harley and peter then go read those plz and thank <3

Peter and Harley shared everything.

At some indeterminable point, their two closets had morphed into one that spanned from Peter’s meticulously organized hole-in-the-wall to Harley’s slapdash walk-in in the tower, with unmatched shoes and ill-fitting jeans strewn on both floors in a fit of frustration while dressing in the pale morning light.

They picked food off of each other’s plates and never, not ever bothered to swat the other’s hand away because there was an unspoken systematic element to it: Harley- the poster-child for ‘all-or-nothing’- who was dabbling in veganism in order to avoid triggering his newly-diagnosed lactose intolerance, would eat all of the green things from Peter’s plate, while Peter would eat double servings of cooked carrots and mashed potatoes, Harley’s least favorite foods ( _if I wanted my food that mushy I would just eat Gerber’s and save you the trouble of momma-birding it for me_ ).

They dog-eared book pages they thought the other would enjoy to read; they shared notes in class, their scrawled handwritings starkly different but somehow blending all the same; they marathoned Buzzfeed Unsolved until the sky turned the lavenders and pinks of dirty paint water from the rising of the sun. Peter’s bunk-bed became _their bed_ , and every day they alternated where they would sleep: one night, sprawled out in Harley’s California King in the tower, and the next, shoulders jammed together in Peter’s conservatively twin-sized bunks. 

It was, at first, a difficult arrangement for the two, seeing as neither slept enough as it was, between scouring the internet for The Perfect Meme and the nightmares that inevitably shook them from sleep’s embrace whenever they were coy enough to slip into the warmth of its waiting arms. But for that, too, they created a system, which was just as simplistic as the rest of their systems: if Peter had awoken with his signature strained cry, then Harley would crawl over and press himself to Peter’s side, carding a hand through his curls and muttering reassurances on a lethargic, clumsy tongue until Peter nodded off again; but if Harley awoke, limbs frozen and eyes wide and chest heaving like he had just swam ten miles, they would get up and walk around the winding halls of the tower, or sit on the fire escape outside Peter’s window and watch the sky change colors in relative silence, their ankles or fingers or arms locked together. Still not speaking about the worries that terrorized their nights. Not yet, anyway. They were working towards it. They had promised _sometime. Sometime_ would come eventually.

It worked, the sharing thing, better than either of them could have anticipated. It was one of the more sensical aspects of their lives, really: brothers were apt to share, and, considering they had been found on more than one occasion gleefully shouting about their mutual adoption of the other from all of the rooftops of the greater Queens area, sharing came with the turf. It was easy. It was something that bonded them ever closer as each day passed.

But. Well.

Just because it worked _better than they anticipated_ didn’t mean it was always… good.

Harley had come home fuming and positively reeking of Peter’s peppermint shampoo more times than he could count, bemoaning the hours he would spend smelling like a _hippie lost in the organics store_ rather than his normal, musky, spicy man scent that he insisted was _the attractive equivalent of sugar-water to mosquitoes_. 

Every time Harley ate the last bit of coconut yogurt, Peter would shed a single tear and whack Harley with pillows- _what do you want me to do, throw it back up and give it to you? I’ll go get a cup to catch the puke right now, just stick your finger down my throat_ \- until Harley would acquiesce and promise to ask before finishing the yogurts (grumbling all the while about how _Peter wasn’t lactose intolerant_ , he could eat the _regular cow hormone slop yogurt like everyone else_ ).

But, worst of all? Undoubtedly, horrifically, _revoltingly_ worst of all?

_They even got sick together_.

Harley was sick first.

It wasn’t the normal type of sick where he would cough, sneeze, maybe faint a little bit, and then placebo-banish the illness by vehemently commanding unto himself that he was perfectly fine and not at all unwell, the ailment then decisively disappearing by the next morning. 

No, it was the kind of sick that had him hunched over the toilet in the matchbox-sized corner-bathroom of the Parker residence with sweaty curls poking into his eyes and a death-grip on the porcelain rim, retching up his lungs, and his stomach, and his spinal cord, probably. The kind that made him wonder if he had been rolled through a pasta sheeter while he had been asleep for the persistent ache in his muscles. The kind that left him flopped on the awfully hard floor beside the toilet rather than retreating to bed simply for the reason that it would exhaust far too much energy to painstakingly stack his limbs in the correct order so that he could stand- so that he could _walk_ \- only to hark back to the bathroom for another bout of heaving all of ten minutes later.

Peter didn’t even last eight hours clean from Harley’s illness. 

It was two-thirty-six in the morning, the apartment lit only by the orange glow of nightlights and the harsh white of the overhead bathroom light shining out from under the closed door as they deliriously folded themselves into positions that might graciously ease the pain in their stomachs, their legs, their backs- 

“My _throat_ ,” Harley croaked, clapping one hand around the extremity in question, one of his feet lifted onto the side of the toilet while sitting on the other. 

“Have you still got one? I think mine came back up two hours ago— along with that bag of parmesan popcorn I had at lunch,” Peter griped, spitting bile at the drain of the bathtub. The bathroom was so small that the boys were pressed vexatiously close, both with their shirts in a clump on the tile floor to save them from being ruined with sweat or vomit stains ( _minimize the casualties_ , Harley had said while struggling to pull his shirt over his ears) and their legs folded up against their chests, against the pipes, against the tub walls, knees in their eyes and elbows bruising against the plaster walls. 

“No, I’m quite sure I still have a throat,” Harley said, leaning his forehead against the blissfully cold toilet rim and reminding himself that a toilet in May Parker’s house was probably cleaner than most people’s dinner plates so that the prospect of poopy germs wouldn’t make him retch all over again. “I know this for certain because said throat hurts as if I deep-throated Satan’s fiery cock.”

“Really? Wow, that must have been an honor.”

“Or maybe just all of the penises in Queens. Maybe it isn’t fiery dick just yet.”

“God, being with someone who has a fiery dick must really… suck.”

“I’m speechless.”

“You know who I bet had a fiery dick?”

“Elton John?” they both said in tandem, having spent the afternoon watching documentaries on the man to distract themselves from their one-way, all-expenses-paid trip to Hades. They both snorted in laughter and then groaned, heads disappearing behind the white porcelain of the toilet bowl and bathtub respectively, the abhorrent splattering sound of their sick and their heavy pulls of air echoing in the small space.

“I bet,” Peter continued as if he had never been interrupted, “that his would’ve tasted like blue raspberry.”

Harley shook a bottle of Febreze and sprayed it to mask the heady puke-scent. “Did blue raspberry even exist as a flavor back then?”

“Dude,” Peter said, affronted, peering over his shoulder at Harley’s pitiful form. “He’s not that old.”

Harley tilted his head sideways. “Younger than Bucky, I guess.”

“That isn’t saying much, Harls. Bucky is, like, the oldest man alive.”

“Still kicking, though,” Harley said dreamily.

“I mean, I’m not going to disagree with that blatantly true statement. He’s damn delicious.”

Harley mimed a chef’s kiss and groaned in appreciation, flopping further against the toilet.

A comfortable silence befell them as they both gauged the level of sick they still felt. 

Bearable? Perhaps. 

Dehydrated, starving, aching, nauseous? Oh, definitely. 

Peter sighed and flicked on the bath water for a moment, sucking in a sip of it and hoping to God that it would stay down rather than encourage his stomach to perform an Olympic-worthy gymnastics routine.

“Oh, my god! Wig! Snatched!” Harley exclaimed a moment later.

“Spill the tea, sis!”

Harley read from his phone screen, squinting without his glasses. “ _Your Song_ and the infamous blue raspberry ICEE both debuted in 1970. So, logically, at his height of fame, Elton John totally could’ve had a blue raspberry dick.”

Both sat in silence for a moment, letting the fact sink in.

“A true legend,” Peter said in a hushed voice.

“If you could choose the flavor of your dick,” Harley postulated, “what would you choose?”

Before Peter could open his mouth to answer, there was a sharp rap on the door.

“Not to interrupt this undoubtedly intellectually stimulating discussion,” said May, peering through the crack in the door at the boys, wire-rimmed glasses gleaming in the low light, “but I brought you two bottles of Pedialyte and you’re each going to drink one before I leave you alone again. And you’re going to keep them down, too, or so help me God I will inject you with IV drips. I was a nurse before Pepper drafted me for the Screaming Supervisors-” a nickname made by Pepper for herself, May, and the others on the board of directors for SI in imitation of Cap’s ‘Howling Commandos’ as a jab at the man (though Tony might have forgiven him, Pepper never truly would absolve him of the guilt of having nearly killed the love of her life)- “so I know how,” she threatened.

“Yes, May, thank you, May, we love you, May,” the boys intoned, taking the bottles from her grasp. 

“May, you really don’t have to stay up with us. We can handle being sick on our own,” Peter said while struggling to undo the child-lock cap on the bottle. 

“Yeah, we can do this, we’re, like, seventeen now,” Harley agreed, trying and failing to bite the seal off of the top of his. 

May stared.

“Yeah… I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” She knelt beside the boys, each of them groaning as they were pushed even closer together by May’s graceful descent onto the floor, all sweat-slicked skin and the cocktail of puke and Lemongrass and Ginger Febreze hanging in the air like toxins. She took the bottles from the two and shook them sharply, one in each hand, before opening the caps and handing them back.

“Grape for Harley… and Bubblegum for Peter,” May said, placing the bottles in their respective grips.

“ _Bubblegum_? Peter, no,” Harley said, appalled. He clapped a hand over his mouth and swallowed thickly, just the concept of the sickly flavor causing bile to climb up his throat like a goddamn geyser.

“Oh, because grape is so much better? It doesn’t even taste like grapes!”

“Yeah but bubblegum tastes like _foot fungus_ and _flower petals_ -”

“Better than armpit sweat, which is what grape tastes like!”

“Square up, Parker, I’m gonna beat your ass-”

“I’d like to see you try-”

“Boys,” May said, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers. 

“Sorry, May,” they said, deadpan.

“Drink your damn Pedialyte so I can go to bed. Pepper has me coming in at seven tomorrow morning, so I would like to get a few hours before then.”

“Sorry, May,” they repeated, chagrined, immediately beginning to chug the drinks.

“ _Not so fast_ ,” May hissed, whacking their knees— Peter’s, up by her ears, and Harley’s, jabbing into her side. “You’ll puke again if you drink it that fast and the last thing I want is for you two to keep making modern art all over my bathroom,” she added, halfway to kidding.

“We’ll clean it up, May, don’t worry,” Harley said genuinely, looking up at her through those awful bloodshot eyes, all sweat-plastered hair and shiny greyish skin.

May would be lying if she said her heart didn’t clench for the boy. “Don’t you worry about that for now, okay? Just worry about feeling better.” She pushed his sweaty bangs out of his eyes and he leaned into the touch, an easy grin spreading on his lips.

May could never have guessed that the Southern spit-fire, fiercely protective, rapid-thinking Stark-adoptee would become such an integral part of her household but here she was, on the floor with him and her other boy at just shy of three in the morning, pouring medicine down his throat and hurting just as bad as she did when her Peter was hurting. A second son, something her and Ben had never had a chance at. 

And, God, Ben would have loved Harley. 

Harley’s quick wit and unabashedly heartfelt compassion reminded her so much of her late husband. They both had open, light eyes that showed blatantly just how much time they spent lost in their thoughts- following the twists and curves of the roads they carved from their brain matter- compared to how much time they spent present. They crafted enormous, all-encompassing ideas that could change the world but phrased them as if they were as unnoteworthy as the occurrence of rain in the Amazon. They even dressed similarly, Harley’s flannels and characteristic grey pullover Anorak jacket reminiscent of Ben’s wardrobe staples.

May wondered if this was the universe spiting her, bringing someone into her life that made it so difficult to let go of what she had lost— someone who made her heart ache for life before.

But she also knew, sure beyond anything else, that her family was _whole_ with Harley there. Just as whole as it had been with Ben, but… differently. Harley filled a space that she hadn’t known had been vacant, and losing him now would make her ache with grief.

Her little family had gotten bigger. Her, Peter, Harley, Tony, Pepper, and even Rhodey. It was everything she could ever want for Peter— everything she could never give him alone. 

The soft, giddy glint in those doe eyes as he watched Harley contort into strange shapes to make drinking his Pedialyte more exciting was proof enough of that. She watched as he lifted one foot over his head and twisted his arm around the leg, tilting his head sideways and screwing up his eyes with the strain of holding the position as Peter howled with laughter. And seeing him like that, like a _child_ again, made her so goddamn _happy_ , like she had a stomach filled with sparkling water and the bubbles were pouring out into her, rendering her light enough to float.

_My boys_ , she thought proudly. Harley choked on a sip of Pedialyte, hacking coughs riddling his body as Peter hammered on his back. _Yup… those are my boys alright. My dumbass disaster sons_.

It wasn’t long until the boys finished their medicine, Harley looking considerably more colored and Peter looking about the same as before- white and shiny and trembling hands and all- but proclaiming that he felt a bit better and _please oh please go to bed May so you don’t get sick, too_. So May left them both where they lay strewn on the tile and climbed into bed, sinking into an exhausted yet blissfully happy sleep that weighed down her limbs like gravity had doubled in the time she had been awake.

Now Peter leaned backwards where he sat, pressing the backs of his and Harley’s shoulders together and leaning the side of their heads against the other.

“Did the Pedialyte really do anything for you?” Harley asked.

“Nope,” Peter said with a snort. “My metabolism is a voracious, insatiable beast. I just wanted May to go to bed. I thought she would be taking better hours now that she’s working with Pep instead of at the hospital, but it seems like her hours are just as crazy most of the time.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that comes with the territory of being hot shit in a massive international corporation.”

“Very true,” Peter agreed with a nod. “I think she’s just happy that we can afford to get groceries every week now.”

“I know how that feels,” Harley said softly. “Used to have to budget and shop for Poppy and I back in Rose Hill. Was tough to save enough money for food when it always seemed like heat and water and electricity were more important, y’know?”

Peter leaned heavier into Harley. “I get that, too. May and I used to share a bed on the really cold nights in winter because our heat would go off so much. I had a flip-phone _just for emergencies_ for the longest time. It was Mister Stark who got me my first real phone, right before this school year.”

“Same here,” Harley said with a rueful grin. “Damn, Parker. We really came from the same lives, didn’t we?”

Peter giggled. “Country bumpkin and city boy. Two different settings but the same story.”

“A story that spans time and space,” Harley said in a dramatic, deep voice. He paused. Then, returning to his normal timbre, “this is where you say something sappy _like it was always meant to be_!”

“It was! It was meant to be! I mean, look at us,” Peter said, whacking Harley’s upper arm with his own. “Practically living together. Puking together. Sharing three parents between the two of us-”

“I mean, I’ve still got my momma back home but I guess I don’t know if she counts anymore. I don’t even hardly know her considering I never saw her." He shook his head. "It’s not like you and May. You guys are close as anything even though she was always away while you grew up. Me and momma… we got pushed apart by it.”

Peter patiently listened to see if Harley went on. _This is_ sometime, _this is sometime this is sometime, Harley is talking about things I never knew and this is big_ -

“You know, she got to drop her second job once I left. With me out of the house, her tips from the bar are enough to support her and Poppy as long as they stick to the budget I wrote them. Me leaving was the best thing for them after all,” he lamented, the tone forcefully light hearted. He shook his head again. “But I guess you’ll find out all of this for yourself soon enough,” Harley ended casually. 

Peter frowned. “What… do you mean?”

“Well,” Harley said with a quirked grin. “I may or may not have spoken to our darling Mister Billionaire Dad and he said I could pop over to Rose Hill in February to take Pop to her big Valentine’s dance. And… if it’s alright with May… I’m sure Poppy would love being escorted by the _two_ finest bachelors in all of Queens-”

Peter whipped around to look over his shoulder at Harley. “I can come home with you? To meet your family? To see your house? To Tennessee? To _Rose Hill_ , Tennessee?”

“The one and only,” Harley said bemusedly.

“Oh my god,” Peter whispered. Then, shouted, “oh my god!” throwing his arms around Harley’s neck and tipping them over onto the tiles, bonking heads together and shouting with laughter and pain as their limbs twisted and shoved against pipes and porcelain and each other. They collapsed onto the floor, Peter half-atop Harley with his arms splayed out and his chin on Harley’s chest.

“Harley,” Peter said seriously, peering down at the other boy’s flushed face. “I have never been so _excited_!” he gushed, the last word coming out half-shrieked. 

Harley grinned up at him, all glimmering eyes and crinkled nose. “See, Pete, you say that now, but I have an instinctive feeling that you are not going to love it this much when you step in horse shit on the side of the streets, or get stung by a massive Red Paper Wasp.”

“No more bites,” Peter said adamantly.

Harley huffed a laugh. “No more bites. Now, get off me. You’re pressing on my stomach and I’m gonna technicolor yawn right into your pretty little face.”

Peter scrambled off quick as he could, suddenly remembering his illness. “Wow, I got so excited that I literally forgot we’re sick.”

“I didn’t,” Harley grumped, before spitting out a mouthful of bile into the toilet.

“Sorry, Harls,” Peter offered meekly, leaning his face back against the porcelain of the tub.

Harley responded with one violent bout of puke, the splattering sound making Peter’s stomach roll in turn. 

“I hate puke so much,” Peter muttered gruffly before leaning forward and spilling into the tub.

“Jesus Christ.”

“This sucks.”

“This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, ever, in my whole life. Worse than watching you get shot. Worse than getting in trouble with Tony for letting that model rocket knock DUM-E over and then taking a video of it instead of helping him up. Worse than falling off my bike and into a ditch full of thistle plants and continuing to roll down the side of the hill until landing in a pond.”

Peter let out a wheezy laugh, gripping his aching stomach in his hand. “ _God_ , don’t make me laugh, I’m gonna die.”

Harley twisted to press one of his feet against Peter’s extended calf. Peter hissed at it, yanking his leg away. 

“ _Cold feet cold feet cold feet_! Keep them far the heck away from me!”

Harley pouted over his shoulder at Peter for a moment as Peter gave him the stink eye. It quickly turned into a staring contest, which Harley won, leading Peter to throw himself backwards and onto Harley’s legs as he lamented his loss. 

Peter strained to reach the Febreze and gave it a definitive spritz, pointing away from Harley’s face. 

“May is gonna have to get a new Febreze because every time I smell this particular combination of Lemongrass and Ginger for the rest of my life, my gag reflex will be so triggered,” Harley said, coughing as he inhaled some of the spray.

Peter jabbed a finger into Harley’s kneecap in acknowledgement of the words. 

Harley sighed heavily and dropped a hand onto the back of Peter’s head, fooling around with the soft curls there. 

“Sweaty head,” Harley commented.

Peter huffed a laugh. “At least we won’t have to go to school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to make the janitor get out the ol’ sawdust bucket just for us,” Harley said dryly, wiping his nose on his arm.

“Where do you come up with these sayings?” Peter asked, bemused.

Harley just gave him one of his crazy-eyed Cheshire cat grins and rubbed his knuckles into Peter’s skull.

Peter wiggled, trying to keep his precious curls out of Harley’s demon grasp for a moment before acquiescing to the calming dance of Harley’s fingers. He felt his eyelids begin to droop, finding it increasingly difficult to stay awake while swaddled in warmth and full of germs and being pet on the head.

“You gonna fall asleep on me, Parker?” Harley asked, but his voice was soft. More of a granting of permission than a question.

“Hmph,” Peter said, letting his eyes fall closed. He conked out to the sound of Harley’s breathy laugh.

When he woke again, the sun was low in the sky and he was surprised to find himself completely prone on the tile. His muscles ached something awful and he could feel the lines on his skin where the grout had left indentations. As his consciousness settled back into his body, he realized Harley’s arm was pinned beneath his stomach and that the odd tickling he felt near his ear was Harley’s breath. 

_Hey, the illness didn’t kill us overnight_ , Peter thought, and counted it as a win.

He peeled himself off the floor with winces and repressed whines of pain and frustration as his bones creaked and his aches smarted. Now that the night was through and the bodily tension of repeatedly upchucking was far behind him, he found himself to be positively freezing, goosebumps lining his skin like freckles and causing him to shudder, while his brain felt as if it were baking from the blistering heat of a fever. 

As Peter grappled with his discarded shirt, Harley rolled into the side of the tub, startling himself awake with a sharp jump. He bolted into a sitting position, pausing for only a moment to blink before groaning and turning toiletwards to deliver unto it an impressive stream of yak.

“What a way to wake up,” Peter mused, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Go take your meds,” Harley said gruffly, spitting the remnants bile out.

Peter frowned. “Should I bother to take them if I’m just going to, like, puke them up in twenty minutes?”

Harley glanced up at him. “Do you still feel like you’re gonna vom?”

Peter considered the question. “Not right now, no. But it’s that weird middle-ground where I could if I _thought_ about it; I just haven’t yet.”

Harley scratched his chin. “Call Tony and ask.”

“ _No no no_ , I don’t want to bother Mister Stark with it-”

“You know what he told you when he and Bruce finished those fucking pills, Pete-”

“But he’s gonna come over and baby us all day and get no work done and then Pepper is gonna-”

“He said that taking anxiety meds won’t fix anything unless you actively-”

“ _Actively work on overcoming my anxiety_ , yeah, Harley, I get it,” he grumbled. It hadn’t yet been a month since Christmas and Peter and Harley’s First Official Mega Huge Super Fight which had concluded spectacularly in a shared meltdown and Peter scratching himself til bleeding, which Tony had discovered and immediately worked to fix— first through therapy (a superior failure seeing as Peter refused to speak to people he didn’t know or trust) and then by mixing up some special, spider-strength anti-anxiety pills with Bruce, which Peter had been taking for two whole weeks now. He was still trying to decide if he liked them or not. 

“And pushing through your anxiety about bothering Tony would be…” Harley, the ring-leader of both the Help Peter Get Through The Weird Effects of Starting A New Medication and Encourage Peter to Beat The Sorry Ass of His Anxiety of His Own Accord groups, prompted.

“Beneficial,” Peter sighed. 

Harley shot him another Cheshire grin. “Ding ding ding!”

“I’ll go call Mister Stark,” he groused, skating out of the bathroom on sock-feet.

He continued to mutter to himself frustratedly, but knew he really ought to take the medication anyway. With a glance at the clock, he saw it was half-past eight, which was two hours later than he usually took the meds, and he could already feel the lack. His head was spinning- not aided by the lack of food in his stomach and the measly servings of Pedialyte he had gulped down- and a knot was slowly forming in his stomach, as if his body was preparing for some sort of encroaching attack without him knowing what it was. With a deep, cleansing sort of sigh, he vaulted himself up onto the kitchen counter and sat, drumming his fingers for a moment before finally lifting his phone and dialing Mister Stark’s number.

Each shrill beep of the dial tone sent his heart racing a bit faster. Nothing would ever make him tick the way the anticipation of a phone call did. 

“Morning, kiddo. Shouldn’t you be at school or something?” came the warm voice on the other end, and it was like the tension in Peter’s chest melted over the hearth of it.

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” he sighed, relief giddying him. He swung his feet over the edge of the counter. “I have a weird question and,” he winced, “I don’t want to bother you and I know you’re going to say it won’t bother you but I’m still nervous that it will-”

“Hey. Buddy. You’re right. Won’t bother me. Forage onward, young one.”

“Don’t tease me or I’ll get real sad,” Peter threatened. 

Mister Stark snorted. “Okay, Pete. Lay it on me.”

Peter cleared his throat. “So, uh. If I were _hypotheticallythrowingup_ should I wait to take my meds or should I take them now anyway?” he said in a rush of breath. 

“Hold up. Rewind. Didn’t quite catch that.”

A long-suffering sigh. “If I’m sick should I still take my meds?”

“Sick? Sick how? Cold sick or fever sick or-”

A loud retching noise came from inside the bathroom, followed by a splatter and Harley’s gravelly, anguished groan.

“Was that Harley?” Tony asked.

“Yeah,” Peter said.

“So you’re both… puking?”

“May said it was the flu.”

“Is May there right now?”

“Nah, she’s with Pepper at work-”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, don’t do anything stupid til I get there.”

“Mister Stark,” Peter protested. “You don’t have to babysit us, we’re fine-”

“ _Pete, I think my spleen just came out of my mouth_ ,” called Harley, his voice sounding strange and thin, as if he was near fainting.

“Scratch that. I’ll be there in seven,” said Mister Stark before the phone call disconnected with a ceremonious _click_. 

Peter sighed out a gentle curse, bemoaning the fact that he was the reason Mister Stark never got a day of rest, before sliding off the counter and heading to check on Harley in the bathroom.

Peter leaned one hip on the doorframe and stared down at Harley’s pitifully rumpled form, still half-dressed but covered in goosebumps, face greenish and eyelids fluttering over those bloodshot, bag-bearing blue-grey eyes. He clicked his tongue once and collected Harley’s shirt from the ground, proceeding to attempt- keyword being _attempt_ \- to yank it over Harley’s head. Harley was being decidedly uncooperative, however, which made it an unnecessarily strenuous task. Arms flopping about loosely, Peter had to manhandle Harley as if he were stuffing a sausage casing rather than helping his perfectly capable idiot best friend dress himself.

“Come on, Harls, just stick your arm through. Jesus, Mister Stark is coming and what is he gonna say if he walks in on me trying to stuff you into clothes like we're Dumb and Dumber?”

“Well, I’d probably wonder why Harley- someone of genius-level IQ- couldn’t dress himself, then question why you’d choose Dumb and Dumber to be your symbolic reference point when you’re much more similar to the infamously ominous Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum,” came a voice from the hall. “On second thought,” Tony said, taking a step into the light at the doorway of the bathroom, “you guys could go by Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber and then everyone wins.”

Harley popped his head through the hole of his t-shirt.

“Yikes,” Tony commented upon seeing Harley’s face. 

“Thanks.”

“How much are you pukin’?”

“Like, eighty.”

“Eighty what? Eighty tablespoons?” Tony gasped. “Eighty _pukes_?”

“Just… just eighty,” Harley said with a noncommittal hand gesture, swaying where he sat. 

“Yikes,” Tony repeated, before turning to Peter. “If he puked… _eighty_ , how would you rate your pukes?”

Peter rubbed his chin for a moment, thinking. “Well, we puked almost at the same time every single time but he puked a little more than me, so I would rate myself a solid seventy-two-point-eight.”

“A respectable score,” Tony said with a nod. 

Peter abruptly dropped to his knees. “About to be eighty,” he gasped, leaning forward over the edge of the tub and spewing for what felt like the hundredth time in twelve hours.

“No, don’t, because if you do then I’ll get real grossed out and puke again but I don’t want to because I just did and my throat is achy-breakyer than Billy Ray Cyrus’s heart,” Harley whined over the din.

Tony, on the other hand, squatted down next to Peter and held his sweaty bangs out of his eyes while he puked, like a good person.

“Y’know,” Peter grunted when he finished, “I am getting concerned as to how much we’re puking.” He turned to Tony. “It’s so much. So much puke, Mister Stark. Non-stop puke, like the Niagara Falls of puke except from our mouths-”

“That’s way too graphic for me,” Tony said, helping Peter to sit on the floor. “Did you get food poisoning? What did you last eat before you started-?” Tony mimed retching.

“Harley ate school lunch but I had a May Parker classic: peanut butter and jelly on wheat. We didn't eat the same thing. So it couldn’t have been food.”

“Plus May said we had the flu and I trust that woman with my life,” Harley said.

Tony nodded as if this was the most sensical statement he had ever heard. “Okay. So how do we fix the flu?”

“I dunno, you’re the adult,” Peter said.

“Oh, so _now_ I’m the adult, but ten minutes ago on the phone you guys were _fine_ and didn’t _need_ me to come help-”

“Stop being a martyr and swaddle me in a goddamn blanket,” Harley grumped.

“Watch your mouth or I’ll start a swear jar and make you pay me every time you curse— and that’s a promise,” Tony said threateningly, pointing a finger into Harley’s chest. He softened, however, when that light pressure caused the boy to keel over sideways onto the tile in a bundle, knees to his chest and hands curled around his socked feet. “Alright. I’ll excuse it on account of you looking like the eighth circle of hell right now.”

“Rude. I look great even when I’m dying,” Harley mumbled, looking so similar to a corpse already that one would wonder whether or not it was even possible for him to die.

“You look like Spiderus from _Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends_ right now,” Peter said.

“Say that to my face, you coward.”

“Oh, worm?”

“Please stop before my brain melts,” Tony beseeched, raking a hand through his gelled hair and causing it to fall limply upon his forehead.

“Sorry, Tony,” Harley mumbled.

“We’ll stop being annoying now, we promise,” seconded Peter.

Tony looked between the two of them, all pitiful and broken and horribly disabled on the ground. Children. Truly children.

Sure, they were teenagers-whatever-kinda-grown-ups, but right then? With their glassy eyes filled with the type of desperation that only comes from being sanded down to dust and having to rebuild yourself of your own volition? With quivering, grey lips and fever-pink cheeks and sweat like stardust along their hairlines? With entirely rank vomit-breath and unthinkably disgusting stains on their shirts? 

That was the youngest they had ever looked to Tony.

It softened something in his chest, inspiring an intoxicating onslaught of that mushyness that he was becoming increasingly familiar with. It sounded like singing, like bells and whistles and hallelujah choirs. The warmth of it ballooned in his chest and he felt full, like he had drank mulled wine; like his insides had been gilded gold and he was shining with the stuff. Almost like he himself was worth more for having felt it— worth more for having known those boys.

God, he loved them. Those beautiful, big-hearted, persistent menaces.

He thanked the universe for them every day. Even now, as they continued to stare up at him expectantly, wondering when the hell he would get a grip and start taking care of them the way he was supposed to.

So he clapped his hands together sharply, accidentally causing both boys to wince and Peter to press his palms over his sensitive ears. “Shit, sorry,” he corrected in something closer to a honeyed whisper. “How about we get you guys into the living room, yeah? Onto the couch? Can you make it that far? At least you’ll be more comfortable there.”

The boys nodded and made to pull themselves off the floor, using everything in arm’s reach for balance: the neck of the sink, the towel-racks, the garbage can, each other’s shaking limbs. Eventually Tony acceded to help them, slinging an arm under each of theirs and leading them out of the bathroom in the world’s slowest ever four-legged race. 

He deposited them like potato sacks on the couch, encouraging a creative string of curse words to tumble from Harley’s lips as he and Peter bonked heads for what had to be the seventh time since first entering the bathroom with sweat-bathed necks and rolling stomachs the day before.

Before anything else, Tony scrambled to the kitchen, sifting through the cabinets on a quest to find two large- bowls? pots? tubs?- for the boys to use as receptacles for whatever their bodies were planning to eject. He ended up dropping a hideously orange dutch oven into Peter’s waiting hands and a Crock-Pot insert into Harley’s. 

They gave Tony one of those identically questioning looks that made him feel like the most unequipped half-dad to ever walk the face of the earth. “At least if you puke in those you won’t have to stay on the tile any longer,” Tony huffed, crossing his arms.

“I mean. I guess this is actually better,” Peter said, relaxing deeper into his position firmly within the couch crease. 

Harley nodded in agreement, turning sideways and draping his legs over Peter’s lap, pressing his feet into Peter’s thigh. “Considering my knees are bruised to hell from the tile floor, this is most definitely better.”

“So, what are we supposed to do now?” Peter asked, looking at Tony.

“How am I supposed to know?” asked Tony.

“You have three PhD’s and none of them taught you enough to treat the flu?” demanded Harley. “What do you do when you’re sick?”

“Drink four pots of coffee and wait it out,” said Tony mildly. 

“I hope Pepper never gets sick because you would be absolutely useless in that situation,” Peter muttered, wrapping his arms tight around the dutch oven.

“Oh, trust me,” Tony said with a scoff. “Pepper doesn’t get sick. Illness takes one look at Pepper Potts, freezes in its tracks, apologizes, and then runs away with its tail between its legs.”

“Sounds about right,” said Harley.

“Hey, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” Tony said, tapping on his clunky watch twice.

“ _How may I help, boss_?” came the smooth voice of the AI.

“I can’t believe he came over here to mother us but has no idea how to mother us,” Harley grumbled to Peter, poking him in the ribs with one toe as Tony spoke into his watch.

“At least we’re already a day in. I might even be fine by tonight if I can keep some food down and bring my metabolism back up to pace,” Peter muttered back. “If he had been here yesterday, he would’ve had a heart attack. _Oh, crap. I have no idea how to fix this. How can I logically use a screwdriver here? I’ll break them. Someone call Bruce. An ambulance. Alert the president. Declare a national state of emergency. Get God on the phone, he’s third in my speed dial_ ,” Peter said in an exaggerated imitation of Tony’s panic-voice and flailing hand gestures. 

Harley snorted with laughter, biting on his knuckles to muffle the sound so that Tony could continue sweet-talking his robot lady-friend.

“Imagine if we died from the flu. He would be out on the streets with a cardboard sign that said _looking for new emotionally-damaged, genius-IQ’ed, father-figure-less children to ‘mentor’_ within six seconds.”

Harley could no longer hold in his laughter, the sound of it pouring out unrestrained and sweet as ice pops in July. He slapped a hand down onto his stomach, gripping it as if it would keep the vomit down.

Tony turned to look at them, but instead of being sharp and reprimanding as the boys assumed he would, he gave them a soft smile before looking back down at the hologram projection from his watch. 

The two shared an easy grin, Peter shaking his head slightly at the absurdity of the situation. Of course they would contract a deathly illness with no one to care for them except for their genius, innovative, acclaimed, logical, _completely and utterly useless_ pseudo-dad. 

Tony continued to frown and read, looking increasingly confounded as he got further into the web page. When he let out a preposterous, disgusted groan that wildly ranged pitches, Harley had enough.

“Why don’t you share your research with the class, Anthony?”

Tony looked up at them, scowling. He repeated the sound. 

“What is it?” Peter asked, eyes wide.

“I have no idea how to fix you,” Tony said, eyes wide with frustration. “We’re supposed to just… _wait for it to finish_ … and, in the meantime, coddle you.”

Harley hooted with laughter. “What did you expect? That you could come in, pour some medicine down our throats, and this would magically stop?”

“Yes!”

Peter giggled. “Mister Stark, you’re so hopeless.”

Tony didn’t deny it, swiping down on his hologram so that it disappeared. “Well, let’s take stock, then. Determining the problem. That’s step one, right? Right. What’s wrong with you?”

Harley cocked an eyebrow. “I mean, it’s safe to say we both have crippling anxiety and da-”

Peter flicked Harley’s ear, prompting a shrill yelp that effectively cut off that train of thought. He began to speak, ticking off each qualm on one of his fingers. “May said we both have fevers. We’re all achy, our throats are sore, and we have been profusely vomiting since yesterday afternoon. We each chugged down two servings of Pedialyte last night, but didn’t really keep it down. And,” Peter added, looking sheepish, “I still haven’t taken my dose of elephant tranquilizers for the day.” He raised one hand to show off how violently it was trembling. 

Harley reached forward and grabbed said hand, holding it against his chest like a stolen treasure. Peter gave him a half-grin. 

Tony frowned, standing heavily. “Yeah, let’s get some of those bad boys in your system for now and if you upchuck it later, we’ll deal with it then. I’ll get you both some water, too. We’ll see if you can hold that down.”

Tony quickly stepped from the room, turning back to give them a last glance before going into the kitchen to recoup.

“He is so in over his head,” Harley said with a grin, squeezing Peter’s hand in his grip. 

Peter smiled. He tilted sideways, leaning his head against the couch cushion. He let his eyes fall closed. “He’s doing his best,” he mumbled, clearly exhausted.

Harley _hmph_ ed his agreement, closing his eyes as well. If Peter was going to sleep, then there was certainly no reason for him to stay awake.

Sleep came for them quickly, warm in their foreheads but cool in their tired muscles like the embrace of the stars.

It was not long before Peter startled awake, wrenching his hand out of Harley’s still-sleeping death grip, and leaning forward to spill the contents of his stomach into the dutch oven.

“Oh, shit,” said Tony mildly, rushing forward from his seat on the armchair closest to the fireplace, dropping one of May’s cheesy romance novels into the vacated seat. He wiped a bit of sweat from Peter’s forehead with the sleeve of his cardigan, and stroked Peter’s hair back in what he hoped was a comforting manner. _That was what you were supposed to do with a puking human, right?_ He wouldn’t know. It was always Rhodey taking care of his hangovers back in school; never the other way around.

Once Peter let out a pitiful groan of frustration- past the point of pain, fully and wholeheartedly pissed off that he was still sick- Tony snatched the defiled dutch oven and carried it off into the kitchen to empty it out. 

Harley peeked up from where he lay, rubbing his eyes with clenched fists and looking out the window at the sun— which now shone from high in the sky, a crystalline white off of the remnants of snow on the spires and streets of the city. “You good, Petey?” he asked, the childish nickname slipping out through his exhaustion.

Peter swallowed the giddy softness the nickname set reeling in him and huffed out a breath instead. “Just violently discharged my colon and my left nut through my mouth, but, otherwise, I’m grand.”

Harley patted Peter’s knee twice, tilting back again to re-enter his near-comatose state. “If you say so.” 

Tony came back into the room at that point, two gummy pills in one hand and two glasses of water in the other. 

Harley gestured towards Tony widely, accidentally knocking Peter in the nose in his sleep-and-fever-driven haze. “Hey, look, it’s- oh, sorry, buddy- he’s got your thingies. Your Peace N’ Quiet gummies.”

Tony looked affronted. “You dumbed down the name of these pills to _Peace N’ Quiet_ gummies? Where did I go wrong raising you?”

“Probably that whole part when you weren’t there.”

“Touche. Drink your water.”

They each dutifully took a glass with thanks. Peter chewed the gummies and chased them with a gulp of water before smacking his lips and putting the glass on the floor beside the couch. Harley, because he had trouble learning from his mistakes as well as an aversion to self-preservative tactics, chugged down his whole glass in one go. 

Tony stared. “Now, I know that I know nothing about whatever is going on here, but if drinking too much all at once made you puke last night, shouldn’t you… I dunno… _not_ do that now?”

Harley shrugged and shot him one of his crinkled-nosed, mischief-laced smiles.

Peter sighed, the medicine being devoured by his metabolism and beginning to expel a cool weightiness through his muscles, relaxing the tension in his shoulders and jaw that he hadn’t realized he had been holding but also making his eyelids feel as if they were being magnetically drawn closed. His curls fell into his eyes as he leaned forward and he wiped them back with a grumble, already half-asleep once more. He threw himself backwards, head on the armrest. “I really oughta cut my hair.”

Harley’s head whipped around to look at Peter, his gaze cutting, suddenly violently awake. “If you so much as trim one single curl on your head, I will skin you, dry out your skin in the sun, and then wear you as a raincoat.”

“Cuter than that Anorak you wear every day.”

“Rude!” Harley said, his voice coming out squeaky through his swollen throat. 

Peter didn’t answer. He was already asleep. So, Harley took the liberty of sliding forward on the couch and jabbing himself into the gap between Peter’s body and the back cushions. He burrowed his face into the ugly, tan corduroy fabric, pressed back-to-back with Peter, and looped their ankles together. A smile quirked up his lips as he dozed.

Tony shook his head in amusement and let them sleep. At least when they were asleep they were easier to deal with.

By the time they next awoke, this time completely lucid with their elbows in each other’s ribs and their knees locked and their feet uncomfortably pressed into the opposite arm of the couch, there were plastic shopping bags strewn haphazardly around them as if they had teleported onto a grocery-store conveyor belt. In the middle of it sat Tony, cross-legged on the ground and squinting heartily at a plastic package in his hands. From somewhere else in the house came the most delightful scent that had ever touched Peter’s nose. It was, like, food. _Real Food_ , as in not May Food, burned crispy and from a package (bless her). 

On the coffee table before them sat their refilled glasses of water and a large bowl of cut-up watermelon and orange slices. The boys stomachs growled aggressively in appreciation. They sat up, shared a glance of confusion, but decided food was more important than explanations and began to stuff the fruit into their mouths as quickly as only half-starved teenage boys could.

Once the fruit began to touch their stomachs, they faced the matter of their confusion.

“Tony, what the hell,” Harley said, a statement rather than a question.

He looked up from the packet, which he was now holding upside down as he tried to interpret. “I called in an S.O.S. to the tower considering WebMD did not help at all,” Tony said, “and since he had so much practice taking care of Skinny Steve’s sick ass before the serum, Bucky brought in the arsenal.”

Peter grinned inwardly at that. Nothing made him happier than the people he loved getting along, and the new camaraderie that came from Tony and Bucky having a real, world-changing heart-to-heart- complete with tears and yelling and a frankly excessive amount of hugging- was one of Peter’s most favorite things to ever occur.

“That beautiful bastard,” Harley said fiercely through a mouthful of watermelon. 

Peter nodded vehement agreement. 

“Well, it’s nice to hear that some people still have nice things to say about me behind my back,” came a voice from the kitchen.

The two on the couch jumped violently, not expecting the awe-inspiringly silent intrusion.

Harley’s heart gave a thump. Bucky had no business standing in that perfect spot of golden afternoon sunlight, all pink cheekbones and powder blue eyes with feather-duster lashes and scruffy jaw and stupid beautiful Brooklyn twang and henley shirt with open buttons and rolled sleeves and-

Peter grinned cheekily. “Thank you for the fruit, Bucky.”

The man winked and uncrossed his arms, stepping into the room with those same eerily quiet footfalls. He perched onto the arm of the couch closest to Peter and let a hand fall onto Peter’s flattened curls. “You two feelin’ any better?”

Peter tilted his head as if trying to receive a radio signal that would give him the answer. “I mean, we haven’t puked in a few hours, so that’s a win.”

Tony chimed in from where he had plopped on the far armchair. “Yeah, I only had to clean the puke-filled dutch oven once.”

Bucky quirked an eyebrow, looking disbelievingly at Tony. “You let them puke into perfectly good kitchen equipment. In this economy?”

Tony shrugged. “I figured it was better than leaving them on the bathroom floor. And I can just buy Aunt Italiana some new pots, no big deal.”

Bucky slipped his flesh hand down from Peter’s curls and onto his forehead, wincing as he felt the lingering heat there. “You’re still smoking up, Pete.” He turned to Harley, a soft look in his eyes. 

Harley could hardly breathe. _A disaster bi. I am such a disaster bi_.

“Let me check you, too, pal,” Bucky said, reaching towards Harley’s forehead. He leaned forward to meet him halfway, closing his eyes as the back of Bucky’s hand cupped his forehead.

“That actually doesn’t feel that bad,” Bucky mused. He dropped his hand. “Low fever at most. 

“Well, ain’t that a relief,” Harley said weakly.

Bucky ruffled his hair and stood, crossing his arms once more. “If your fever is breaking then that means you should be moving on through the stages of the influenza. If you get all stuffy and gross within the next twenty-four hours, I wouldn’t be surprised.” He turned back to Peter. “You… I’m surprised your fever hasn’t broken yet, actually. Shouldn’t your metabolism have, like, beat it away with a stick by now?”

“Well,” Peter said with a sheepish frown. “I think it’s taking its time seeing as I haven’t been able to keep anything down since yesterday-”

“I forgot to feed you!” cried Tony, suddenly panicked. 

Bucky shook his head exasperatedly and picked up four or five of the plastic bags and made to leave the room. “I’m going to go finish up your soup. It’s almost done on the stove already. I’ll be back in a jiff, yeah? Gimme a shout if you need something from the kitchen.”

Peter grinned at him again. “Thank you so much, Bucky. We would’ve died here, sad and puke-covered and alone with Mister Stark if you hadn’t come in time,” he said, sincere as anything.

Bucky gave a snort of laughter, wrinkles bunching up at the corners of his eyes. “You slay me. You would’ve been fine with the old man, even if he seems incompetent.”

“Hey, _who are you calling old man_?” Tony demanded as Bucky left the living room, chortling. “Who is he calling old man?” Tony repeated grumpily, folding his arms across his chest and slouching down in his seat.

“Yeah, clearly you’re an eight-year-old,” Harley said, gesturing vaguely to Tony’s hunched position.

Tony stuck his tongue out at Harley.

Harley grinned.

Tony busied himself by messing around with their blankets, tucking in loose corners and adjusting their pillows, offering more water or aspirin or _anything else so I don’t look like a loser in front of Barnes, please, I am such an embarrassment_.

“Could we watch a movie?” Peter asked sweetly, looking up at Tony through his lashes in a move that he had perfected for the sole purpose of coercing Tony into doing his bidding.

And, in true form, the softest, most awe-and-admiration-filled look crossed Tony’s face. “Sure, kid. What do you guys feel like? _Star Wars_? Something Disney?”

“ _Harry Potter_?” Peter suggested, turning to Harley. Harley shrugged his agreement. “Harley can choose which one, as long as it’s HP three, four, or five.”

“Three,” Harley said definitively. “That one is my favorite.”

Tony smirked at him. “Wouldn’t have something to do with Harry having a father-figure fall out of the sky and spoil him with expensive toys, would it?”

“No,” Harley said dryly. “I’m just super gay for Tom Felton and he’s hot in that movie.”

Tony blinked. “Well. I’ll pretend that didn’t break my heart.” He flicked on the TV and streamed the movie.

Peter settled heavily against Harley’s shoulder as Daniel Radcliffe hissed out _lumos… maxima!_ s. Harley wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulders and held him close, relaxing into the fading scent of his stupid peppermint shampoo and, despite being on death’s doorstep, feeling, undeniably and all-encompassingly, at home.

**Author's Note:**

> i love you all more than i love watermelon juice. which is a lot. 
> 
> you know the drill: comments and votes encourage me to write more. i have an idea for the next installment in this series and im hoping on god it comes out good because it is one of my favorite ideas. if you have any other ideas & tropes you want to see, though, drop them in the comments please o please! i love ideas! it's win-win because i don't have to think as hard to scrounge up ideas AND you get to read things that you want to read. 
> 
> hehe a fun drinking game would be to reread this and take a shot every time i use a strange euphemism for "vomit" lmk if you survive the game 
> 
> (i'm kidding plz dont do that you Will i repeat you will die of alcohol poisoning)
> 
> anyway okay that's all have a good day and go to sleep now if it's the middle of the night you heathens


End file.
